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USA, Arent Fox LLP updates

International Trade

The Department of Commerce recently announced that it had formally submitted to President Donald Trump the results of its investigation into the effect of imports of automobiles and automobile parts on the national security of the United States. With this announcement, the global automotive industry was put on high alert of a potential new US import tariff aimed directly at the products that they sell.

In a strike against Nicolás Maduro and his supporters, the Trump administration recently announced a new executive order. Pursuant to Executive Order 13850, US persons are now broadly prohibited from engaging in transactions with Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA), including its majority-owned subsidiaries. However, the Office of Foreign Assets Control has rolled out a slew of general licences authorising US persons to engage in certain transactions involving PDVSA and its majority-owned subsidiaries.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer recently announced the Trump administration's intention to leave companies subject to the 10% tariff rate under Section 301 List 3 of the Trade Act 1974 without an exclusion process. In addition, due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, further delays are anticipated with the review of exclusion requests relating to Section 301 List 1 and Section 301 List 2.

In 2017 the United States agreed that it was time to modernise the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement pact, launching months of negotiations that recently ended. When it comes into force, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will strengthen national treatment protections for the covered financial services industry in the United States. This is set to take place throughout 2019, with the USMCA possibly coming into force in early 2020.

President Trump recently announced the United States' intention to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and re-impose secondary sanctions on Iran. The announcement was accompanied by wind-down periods during which non-US persons could wrap up transactions entered into prior to 8 May 2018. The final wind-down period recently expired and secondary sanctions were re-imposed on a broad swathe of Iranian persons and sectors of Iran's economy.

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The International Law Office (ILO) is a series of legal newsletters which provide expert legal commentary in the form of concise, regular news updates. ILO is written in collaboration with over 500 of the world's leading experts and covers more than 100 jurisdictions.